World News - Company of Wrecked Planes Blames Milwaukee Air Traffic Control for Taxiway Crash

The company that owned two small cargo planes that collided and burned on an airport taxiway blamed air traffic control Thursday for the accident. Neither pilot was seriously hurt, despite a fireball that erupted Wednesday at General Mitchell International Airport when one of the twin-engine planes ruptured the other's wingtip fuel tank. "Both aircraft were operating in controlled areas under explicit instructions of air traffic control," according to a statement by Freight Runners Express Inc. of Milwaukee. ... http://abcnews.go.com

The UN mission in Haiti says four people were killed when its peacekeepers expanded their presence in the Cite Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince. A spokesman said six other people were injured in what he described as exchanges of fire with criminals. On Wednesday, when the operation took place, another UN spokesman had said there had been no reports of casualties or much of a reaction to the operation. The peacekeepers are now holding a strategic location in Cite Soleil. The stronghold is to be a centre for operations against armed gangs, a UN spokesperson told the BBC. A local aid worker for the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, Fabio Pompetti, told AFP news agency that three women had been wounded in Wednesday's clash and that one of them later died from her wounds. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6300885.stm

About 50 vehicles, including an ambulance, were involved in a massive chain-reaction crash on Interstate 90 under whiteout conditions Thursday, leaving one person dead, officials said.Police closed I-90 in both directions over an approximately 10-mile section east of Erie to the New York border after the 12:45 p.m. accident. The highway remained closed Thursday night and authorities did not know when it would reopen, state police spokesman Cpl. Mark Zaleski said.Among the vehicles involved were 22 tractor-trailers, he said.Several tanker trucks were involved and a hazardous materials crew was dispatched to the scene, but the trucks were not damaged and remained upright, said Maria Finn, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency....http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-25-penn-pileup_x.htm?csp=34

Iran has converted a 30-ton ballistic missile into a satellite launch vehicle that will be used to send a satellite into space soon, a move that could have wider security implications, Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine reported on its Web site on Thursday. Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, spoke about the upcoming launch to religious students and clerics in Qom, the industry trade publication said. The launcher is a version of the Shahab 3 missile that has a range of 800 to 1,000 miles, the magazine said, citing unidentified U.S. agencies. A missile of its kind could reach Saudi Arabia and as far west as Turkey, the report said. A group of mad men are beating the war drums again. The question is have we learned nothing from all the lies, will we swallow a new batch of lies (new version of WMD) and attack yet another country? You would think intelligent people would learn from mistakes...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2824967

University students loyal to Lebanon's government clashed with Hezbollah supporters Thursday, setting cars ablaze and battling with homemade clubs and stones. The melee deepened worries that Lebanon cannot contain the political and sectarian rivalries threatening to push it toward civil war. At least three people were killed and dozens were injured before army troops backed by tanks and firing barrages of warning shots into the air dispersed most rioters. The military then declared Beirut's first curfew since 1996. But the fallout reaches far beyond the casualty count. The clashes, sparked by a cafeteria scuffle between pro-government Sunni Muslims and pro-Hezbollah Shiites, reinforced fears that Lebanon's sectarian divisions are erupting into violence as they did during the 1975-1990 civil war. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2823583

An insurgent group that has claimed responsibility for the downing this week of a US helicopter in Baghdad that killed 5 Americans posted a video on an Islamic Web site showing the wreckage & 2 bodies. The 1-minute, 14-second video carried the logo of the 1920 Revolution Brigades, a known Sunni militant group. It showed wreckage of a helicopter with bricks scattered around it. The naked bodies of 2 men, one with gray hair & the other with dark hair, were seen near the wreckage. “Our heroes were able to shoot the film of the helicopter wreckage after they downed it over a roof of a house of a citizen,” said a statement from the group. Iraqi & US officials said earlier that 4 of the 5 Americans who died in the downing of a US security company’s helicopter in a dangerous Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad on Tue were killed on the ground, in execution-style shootings in the back of the head. The 2 bodies shown in the video had no visible gunshot wounds to the head or any other visible wounds...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16812915/